by WB McKay
The child centered her gaze on the tablet screen and dragged a finger across it.
Nathaniel'd told me once that he believed children were as good of bullshit detectors as wolves. It wasn't something I'd thought of in a long time, but he was fresh in my mind, and it was the only advice I had to work with. "I lost my parents when I was a child," I confessed, feeling naked for exposing the seldom spoken words. The child lifted her eyebrows; I hoped it was in response to my statement and not her game. "They were attacked by monsters. I… I didn't talk to anyone for a long time after." I cleared my throat. "I hope you have someone to talk to," I told her, surprising even myself. "I'm sorry."
"Monsters?" she asked. I knew this was what she'd told the police; the journalists had included that information in the articles online. Though the police had issued a statement saying there was no evidence of werewolves, the journalists had included quotes from citizens concerned about the "ongoing threat", along with quotes from folks calling out their fellow humans to have compassion and not jump to conclusions. One human in particular had claimed, "They're still humans". That was going to stay with me for a while. We were not, in fact, still humans. Not that it'd do any good to point that out, but it was an important truth. Humans didn't get to know truths like that.
"Yes," I told her. "There were a lot of dogs." It was close enough to the truth. "And a lady." White woman. Blond hair. Big coat. Anklet. I blinked the memory away, determined to stay anchored to reality, to the moment in time I was currently living and not one long gone from anyone's memory but my own.
"I saw a lady," she said.
"Yeah? Do you remember what she looked like, or what she wore?"
The tablet fell to her lap, and she shrugged. "She was pretty. She talked a lot."
"Yeah? Did she have dark hair like me, or light hair like you?"
"Blond," the girl said. I stopped breathing for a minute. "She wore a bracelet. On her ankle." She scratched her nose, and quiet enough that a human wouldn't have heard her, whispered, "She was friends with the monsters. They ate my parents."
"The dogs?" I managed to ask.
She forcefully shook her head, tossing her hair everywhere. "There weren't any dogs. I like dogs."
Huh. I didn't know what to make of that. She'd described the woman so well, but she'd been through a trauma. Perhaps she didn't see the wolves. Perhaps they hadn't shifted in front of her. Perhaps… This could still be the lead, I thought. This could still be it. I didn't know enough yet.
An older woman opened the front door and turned a suspicious glare on me. Time's up. I took a step away from the fence to show I meant no harm, that I was willing to leave. I was glad to see the woman out there to scare me off. It had been far too easy for me to show up and ask the girl questions. While that had worked out well for me, and I'd done research most wouldn't have been able to do in order to obtain the address, it should have been harder than standing on a sidewalk to gain access to the child. The girl needed some extra protection after what she'd been through.
"Get back in here," she called to the girl, waving her arm.
"But you told me to go sit outside," she argued. "You said I had to get off the sofa 'or else'."
"Well now I'm telling you to get in here," she said. "Move."
The girl slouched her shoulders, but moved her feet. I figured if she was already willing to put up a fight with her grandma over something as simple as that, she was going to be all right.
I got back in my truck, my arms shaking with adrenaline. This was something all right, and something was more than I'd had in a long time.
THE ADRENALINE RUSH WAS wasted on grocery shopping, but I didn't go all the way to Redding without provisioning. That was reckless nonsense. I filled up my ice chest and packed up a few bags of dried goods. I thought I'd have calmed down by the time I was done, but the crowds at the store had only put me more on edge. I couldn't wait to get home. The peace and quiet I found there was like nowhere else, and I knew my mind would settle as soon as I got there. My mind would settle, and it would figure out what to do next.
Back when I was a human girl, I thought the place too quiet. I couldn't figure why my parents had come so far just to settle on silent land with no one around to talk to.
Now I got it. Now I understood.
Peace. They wanted peace.
I was supposed to be able to think that word without clenching up, I knew that. My heart shouldn't have raced like it thought it had somewhere to get to. My palms shouldn't shake with the urge to change into paws.
It took me a long time to get used to that in my head—the fact that when I got angry about what happened to my family, I'd turn into something that looked like their killers.
That was just prejudice, I knew that now. It took me a long time to recognize it, but I saw the beauty of the wolves' mistake. They left me to suffer and die, and that girl surely did, but she got back up again, and whether they meant to or not—and I like to think they didn't—they left me with just what I needed to get back up again.
Claws. And fangs. And the picture of perfect, sweet revenge.
It was damned poetic.
WHEN I PASSED SHINGLETOWN Store I thought to turn my cell phone on. It had been charging in the truck all day. I didn't have reception back at home, so if I was going to check my messages, they'd have to come in before I got there. I didn't expect much to come from it, but I was almost at Lake McCumber when my phone started shaking like it couldn't even stand how many messages were zipping into its little computer brain, so I pulled in. There was only a couple trucks, and the parking was broken up around the trees, so it didn't take much to find a spot where I could see the lake but avoid any view of people at all. I could still hear them, but with my ears, there was nothing to be done about that. They were quiet enough.
A responsible business owner would check for work messages first, but I'd only had a friend for a couple years at that point—after around a hundred years of going without—and the novelty had not worn off. Not that I'd tell her that. She'd laugh way too hard.
Tess had left me one message. I didn't know why I bothered to look at it; I could have guessed what it was going to say.
Tess: That's a horrible fucking idea.
Honestly, not as strong of a reaction as I'd been expecting, which told me she didn't have a firm handle on what I was up to. Probably for the best.
Unfortunately, I was about to call her and blow any illusions she had out of the water. She picked up real quick; she'd been waiting for me.
"Do you have any backup?" she asked me.
"Hey, Tess," I said. "I got in a couple days ago." I didn't bother to answer her question because she knew the answer was no. Backup? She was the only backup I ever had anymore, and I'd made it clear she wasn't to come this time. Tess was a perfectly capable hunter—it was amazing what she'd gone up against as a human—but this was something I needed to do on my own.
"I could be there in under twenty-four hours," she said. "It wouldn't cost you any time."
"I know that," was all I said.
"This is the best lead you've had in forever."
My mind dizzied with all the leads I'd ever had. One in particular sprang up and I winced, scrunching my eyes like that'd stop me from seeing Nathaniel's face. Sometimes I managed to convince myself I'd gotten over it. I'd matured, I'd let go, I'd accepted that I couldn't control everything in the universe. Other times it was a raw wound, fresh as if it had just happened. That's the thing about living real long: if you don't figure out how to handle your memories, they haunt worse than any ghost. I had too many years of shit stuffed in my head, and no clue on how to put any of it to rights. Once I found success, it'd be easier. I knew that. The problem was too many years of failure and regret. "I know it," I told her.
"If you know that, then you should have known to call me in. Say the word and I'll head your way. Do it."
"I appreciate that you care," I told her. "Thank you, but you know my answe
r is no."
"Because you have a death wish."
"Because this is mine."
"Selfish."
"Don't I know it."
"Hey, shut up with the serious tone," she told me. "You're fine." This was how Tess cheered me up, by ordering me to stop sounding/looking/being sad. I must have been some kind of messed up because it worked in a way that comforting words like "everything will be okay" or "you're a nice person" never did.
"What are you working on?"
"We're still talking about you. If you aren't letting me come your way yet, you need to at least run me through the details again."
I sighed. Heavily. There was no reason to go over it all.
"Oh, get over it," she told me. "The more I know, the easier it'll be to save you when you're cut into pieces in somebody's basement somewhere."
I snorted. We were a dark and grizzly pair.
"Do you want to spend the next couple centuries in pieces?"
"Maybe," I told her. "It sounds peaceful."
"How long can you stay still for, Julia?"
"I'm a predator. I can sit still indefinitely."
"Yeah, if you're watching and waiting for your next kill. That's doing something. Don't bullshit me."
"How does Piper put up with you?" Tess spent more time with her hunting partner than most people did with their spouses. I often wondered how it was that such strong personalities worked together without murder charges.
"By not bullshitting me, that's how. Jesus, enough of this. Details. Now."
"Okay. Fine. I'm in California."
"At the cabin?"
"Right."
"Well, that's some poetic bullshit." She snorted. "I bet you love the idea of that, don't you?"
I did. It felt right. I wanted to be at home, as Julia, when I got my revenge. "It's convenient."
"Yeah, right. So anyway. You're at the cabin in California and you're following the best lead ever." Her voice was too chipper, it was ticking me off. "There's a dead family, a surviving witness—"
"A child," I interjected, hoping to temper her tone. "I met her today."
"A child witness, who said she saw a woman, and a bunch of monsters. Do I have all that right?"
"That's correct," I said, and then added, "She confirmed it was a blond woman. With monsters and an anklet." I don't know why I felt so fragile when I said this. It had felt like such a strong, tenable lead earlier. It was my best lead. But as I said it to Tess, I felt more exposed than I had in a long time. Actually, that wasn't true—I'd felt something like it for a moment when I'd slipped and looked Nathaniel in the eye earlier in the day. I wasn't built for the emotion the day was wringing me through. I needed to smash that down before I got hooked on the stuff.
"That's good Julia, real good. I mean it. But—and I looked this up while you were ignoring my text so I know what I'm talking about here—the kid is young, and at that age lots of kids would call humans who did that to their family monsters. The scene doesn't necessarily indicate werewolf. There are lots of women in the world, many of them blond."
"I know that."
"It's your best lead," she said, "but it's a thin lead."
"I know that."
"But you still think it's right."
"I do."
She sighed, which meant she had her head down. Her long, black, curly hair was shrouding her face, and her index finger and middle finger were rubbing the spot between her eyes. I stayed quiet while she thought it out, searching for an angle to argue though she knew me well enough to know it wouldn't make a difference. Finally, voice hoarse, she said, "You know it only feels right to you because it's hitting you in your wounds."
"Look at you talking all poetic to try and reach me."
"I'm serious, Julia."
"I know you are." This was why I hadn't had friends in so long. I was hurting her. I knew Tess was strong enough to take it, but did she really deserve it? Was being my friend worth the pain? I knew it wasn't, but it was like she'd said, I was selfish.
"You're seeing a kid survivor, witness to their dead family, in the same place you grew up. You've taken it as an excuse to move back into the place. I bet you're staying there. I bet you're cleaning it out and living in it. You're staying awake at night, staring at the shrine to your family, convincing yourself that this is it. The time has come."
"It might be," I told her.
"It might." She cleared her throat. "But it might not. And then what?"
"And then I go on searching."
"That easy," she said, and I flinched. "You know this is going to hurt you. Don't do this to yourself."
"I have to," I gritted out.
"But you don't have to do it alone."
"I have to."
"Stubborn, selfish, bitch." She sighed. She sat up then, I could picture it. She shook her hair back, slapped her thigh, and then crossed her arm over her chest. She'd given up. "You need to text me when you go to scenes so I can find you in that basement."
"Your basement theory is very specific. Have you heard something about a killer and basements?"
"You need to watch more movies. Basements are a classic horror trope. Every kid grows up scared of the basement."
"Why?" I asked. "Because it's underground? Is it claustrophobia? Or…" I trailed off, unable to think of anything else.
"It's dark and cold and unlived in and… it looks like a place a monster would like."
"Basements can be safer than above ground for a lot of reasons," I said. "So I suppose you're right. This monster does like basements."
"I'm not sure I wanted to know that, but thanks for the intel," she said. "Right, well, are we clear on the plan?"
"What plan?"
"Are you fucking with me right now?"
I laughed. "I might be."
"This is serious," she said. "I know you're focused in on your revenge so maybe you're not following the news as close as you should be. Did you hear about Winnipeg? Or Cleveland? Or Florida? Let's not talk about Florida."
"I have plenty of good things to say about Florida." The ocean and trees were completely different from the ocean and trees in California, but still nice. The last time I'd been in Florida, I'd seen manatees. I'd been following a serial killer who liked to collect human arms—I never did learn why—and once that had been dealt with, I'd taken an afternoon off and seen the manatees. They weren't the most fascinating of creatures, but it was new to me, and new was nice.
"Well sorry to break this to you, but you might want to take it off your travel plans for a while. There have been werewolf attacks."
"I haven't seen that."
"Because you're not looking for it."
"I've taken at least cursory glances at the news. If wolves were attacking humans, I imagine it would be at the top." Assuming the humans knew enough to recognize a true werewolf attack. Exposed to the humans as we were, they hadn't yet put together enough information to positively identify all—or even most—crime scenes. Once they were, I wondered how useful I'd be. Could the humans handle violent werewolves on their own? I decided I'd ponder that one once it became relevant.
"You're misunderstanding. Humans are attacking people they believe are wolves. Or dogs they believe are wolves. The guy in Florida… Well, to be fair, 'man in Florida' was a weird ticket news item before the exposure happened." She snorted. "It's good you're in the middle of nowhere, at least. You're being careful, right?" Tess asked it like she wasn't expecting much of a response. She took for granted that I'd be careful about not letting humans know I was a wolf. In many ways, keeping the secret was a bigger part of Tess's life than mine. I was a wolf, the secret was my identity. As a human, Tess straddled a line. She was aware of Faerie and its secrets and dived into that world. She hunted monsters, kept humans and fae safe from threats. She was uniquely aware of the dangers for humans, and so, she lied to humans on a constant basis. Now, me? Telling humans the truth, or a lie, wasn't something I considered much as I stayed away from conversation
s with humans as a general rule.
"So, uhh… about that."
"What?" Her voice was sharp.
"I was going to tell you something on this phone call, but now I don't think that's such a good idea."
"Well, tough shit now. Hit me."
"The humans know I'm a wolf."
"What humans?"
"All of 'em. I mean, I figure it's safe to assume anyone looking at me may know. I told some government types when I went to get my paperwork changed for the property."
"WHAT?"
"I've got it handled."
"THE HELL YOU DO." Something crashed down and the phone crackled and banged like Tess'd dropped it. Or maybe thrown it. "You are so dumb." Some more banging went on. "It's hard to be friends with someone so dumb."
Well, that hurt to hear, but I knew it for truth. "I'm sorry you're upset. I don't want to worry you."
"Why would you even do that? Why would you expose yourself like that?"
"There were a lot of reasons," I said, and after a good ten seconds of silence, I realized she wasn't going to let me get away without listing some of them. "Eventually the government is going to figure out how to discriminate against werewolves. They haven't even gotten around to asking if we should be considered citizens yet—at least not in the way where local government knew what to do with me when I went to change paperwork." It had been easier than I'd expected to prove my age and identity. All they cared about was paperwork. Sometimes I had to get one paper before I could get another, but that was hardly a hurdle. "Eventually, I wouldn't have been able to do it. Because I got things done so early, it worked." The folks I dealt with had been flustered and disbelieving. They weren't sure what to do without any protocol. "I got the place in my name. It was important to me." And if the killer ever thought to look for me—to associate my name with the scene of the crime—I had no problem with being bait. "If the humans turn on me, I can hide. It's not like I haven't done it before." Roughly, in one way or another, it was what I'd always done. "It's going to be fine."
"No more bullshit," she reminded me.
"Okay."
"You know there are people out there—other hunters—who would take you out on that information alone."
